Search results for: Elementary schools

This qualitative study explored aspects of the inclusive program in an elementary school in a rural section of the upper Midwest of the United States. The paper describes a university and elementary school research partnership to study collaboration among the general education teachers and the special education staff (teachers and assistants) in the inclusive elementary school.

The authors argue that part of the difficulty in studying the teaching of reading in elementary classrooms is determining where 'the action' occurs in reading instruction. Based on their 5-year longitudinal study, they describe three challenges: (a) determining key factors in the complex instructional environment that should be the focus of study, (b) determining who teaches reading to specific students, and (c) determining the boundaries of reading instruction or when it occurs during the school day and year.

“Conventional schooling” is characterized by underlying values of competition and credentialism implicit in an unconscious, cultural framework for U.S. institutional schooling. Schools that define themselves in opposition to this cultural heritage consider themselves innovative schools and tend to use collaborative learning environment. The authors examined how students who had attended an innovative collaborative elementary school interpreted their former innovative and current conventional schools. They also examined how these students used these interpretations to form coping strategies for success in the new environment.

This 2-year qualitative study centered on five elementary teachers the year following their participation in the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards certification process.The study used a communities-of-practice framework and focused on teachers’ appropriation of the Board's standards and portfolio as conceptual tools related to literacy instruction.